Bramble: The Mountain King - The Review (PC)

A few days ago, in my review of Redfall, I expressed my disappointment and dissatisfaction with the direction taken by the big video game industry: products made in a factory, conceived at the table by “industry bosses” rather than by the passion of developers, who often end up performing the simple task of programming without truly believing in the project they’re part of. But all it takes is a quick glance towards the world of low-budget titles, indie games, to see the situation completely shift and feel a renewed confidence in the present — and especially in the future — of the medium that represents the greatest passion for me and, I hope, for many of you who read this.

The title we’re reviewing today is Bramble: The Mountain King, released nearly a month ago from the 'furnaces' of the talented team at Dimfrost Studios under the banner of Merge Games. After gathering the success and social media approval (over 178 million views on TikTok), the title has finally reached our hands thanks to a kindly provided copy from the publisher. We’d been warned about the strong Norse mythological inspiration (particularly Swedish), but honestly, we didn’t expect such grim and brutal twists. Were we disappointed? Absolutely not.

Note: We feel it is our duty to reiterate here the warning that appears at the start of the game, to protect more sensitive or younger players: "This game contains explicit violence, along with blood and scenes of spilling blood. It also references topics such as suicide, infanticide, murder, violence against minors, psychological trauma, and animal cruelty."

It was a full moon night...

The little Olle wakes up suddenly in the middle of the night. He's just had a terrible nightmare. Was it the dark, creepy stories mum read to him to help him sleep (parenting 101), or the draft from the half-open window...

Hold on! What about the half-open window? "Lillimor, wake up, why did you leave the window open...". Lillimor, Olle's older sister, is not in her bed. Despite being terrified by the prospect, Olle faces the darkness of the night and rushes off to find his sister. Soon enough, fortunately, the two reunite, and we players will accompany them on a moonlit stroll that is extremely poetic and delightful, but ends in the worst possible way. The idyll breaks, a monstrous giant troll captures Lillimor and Olle manages to escape by breaking his earpiece, but now he is alone and the night is terrifyingly dark.

Here begins our true adventure in Bramble: The Mountain King, a fairy tale that alternates delightful rocky panoramas with the desolation and decay of the evil. A striking juxtaposition of idyll and malice, genuinely disorienting yet utterly captivating. At first, the title reminded us of It Takes Two or Trine, it took less than 10 minutes of gameplay to flip completely to the opposite side, heading towards Little Nightmares and, we’re fairly certain to say, the folks at Dimfrost Studios have gone even further than Bandai’s title in terms of weight and brutality of the themes tackled regard to the heaviness and brutality of the themes addressed. You only need to think that the game takes around 5-6 hours to complete. 5–6 hours to finish, but during our playthrough we had to pause a couple of times to catch our breath, overwhelmed by the emotional whirlwind Bramble is capable of generating.

The narrative progresses in an extremely linear fashion, with a fixed camera that masterfully follows scene transitions and establishes a clear distinction between foreground and background, the latter being vividly alive and not merely a backdrop. This creates a strong sense of immersion,, which is unfortunately broken only in a few instances where the direction to take is not immediately obvious and forces us into a rather awkward but unavoidable 'trial and error' phase. "trial and error" a bit off-kilter but unavoidable.

"Courage is found in unlikely places"

Just like the hobbits of J.R.R. Tolkien, Olle finds himself facing a grim and unknown world fraught with mortal dangers. The desire to find his sister gives him the courage to overcome his own limits, and in this, he is aided by small and endearing friends, such as the gnomes who inhabit the undergrowth of the forest, or the good giant Lemus.In fact, the gameplay is certainly the game's weakest point: old-fashioned, wooden, and utterly uninnovative. Make no mistake, the game is playable, but we'll be mostly driven by our interest in the story and mythological lore, as well as the spectacular environments, rather than by actual fun. The game is fun to play, but we'll be mostly driven by our interest in the story and mythological lore, as well as the spectacular environments, rather than by actual fun.

A first part that feels very much like a walking simulator, followed by a second, slightly more action-packed segment, where we’ll need to solve simple environmental puzzles, tackle stealth phases to overcome enemies of varying size, and finally, platforming sections that represent the game’s true Achilles’ heel, given the sluggishness of movement and animations in Olle. platform stages that represent the game’s true Achilles’ heel of the game, due to the sluggishness of the movements and animations in Olle.

Bramble can therefore be considered a platform-horror, where the horror elements are far from being mere distractions, and the topics explored draw from the rich and captivating Norse mythology, often hiding an alternative meaning for the player to uncover and interpret. To aid all this, after every encounter or fight with a mythological creature, Olle will find a tome that will explain, to him and the player, the story behind the entity just encountered, all through beautifully hand-drawn illustrations. meravigliosi disegni realizzati a mano. We found this almost didactic note in the game absolutely pleasant and a great contrast to the constant anxiety and desolation that permeate most of the gameplay.

There are also some boss fights: boss fightThe boss fights feature exceptionally well-designed bosses — like the rest of the characters (or nearly all of them) — but the gameplay and challenge level, unfortunately, adhere to the same rules as the previously mentioned platforming genre, where many deaths stem from movement glitches in Olle, and ultimately, what you need to do to overcome each fight is always the same. Not much, really, but not an absolute dealbreaker either.

Technically Speaking

We tested Bramble: The Mountain King on the following setup:

AMD Ryzen 7 3700x @ 3.60 GHz

Gigabyte RTX AORUS Master 3080 Ti 12Gb

Corsair Vengeance RGB RT 32GB DDR4 3600MHz

LG 34GN850 monitor at 3440x1440 resolution (21:9)

The work done by the guys at Dimfrost Studios with the Unreal Engine is truly top-notch: graphically, the title has little to envy compared to more established games. The same can be said for the optimisation, with a stable frame-rate keeping the immersion alive and constant and no bugs whatsoever that we encountered during testing. We don’t want to make Bramble seem like a purely graphical title with little brain, clear, but it must be said that the artistic style and the commitment to building the game world are among the elements that make Dimfrost’s work an excellence in the realm of low-budget titles.

We previously mentioned the works of J.R.R. Tolkien... well, Bramble won't have the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings, but the music still does its job in accompanying us through the now-frequently-cited binary of relaxation-tension, good-bad, light-dark. And how could we not mention, to conclude, the presence of Italian text localisation, something always appreciated given its growing rarity.

In conclusion

We have to admit it, playing Bramble: The Mountain King left us stunneda bit due to the technical mastery of Dimfrost Studios, which, we’re honest, we didn’t know existed; a bit because we thought we knew what was in store and instead our assumptions were swept away within half an hour. But don’t think of all this negatively, on the contrary! The six hours Bramble took us to watch its ending credits were a an incredible succession of all kinds of emotions, and it’s a title that also pushed us to explore some themes or myths we didn’t know about, reinforcing the idea that video games can also be an educational medium (even if, unfortunately, this can’t be used in schools for obvious reasons). a video game can also be a teaching tool (although, unfortunately, it couldn’t be used in school for obvious reasons). Well done to Dimfrost Studios, a talented group definitely worth keeping an eye on in the future.